Your website works 24/7/365, so it can be a huge new channel of revenue for your company, if it isn’t already. However, I’m going to assume it isn’t or you wouldn’t be searching this topic. So, let me say this; my only job is getting more sales leads for our clients. More leads…they love us. Few leads…they leave.
So, to quote David Ogilvy: “We sell or else.”
With that said, here are the steps you need to know as you attack this challenge:
- BASICS MUST BE IN PLACE: If you ever took Marketing 101 in college you may remember “The 4 Ps of Marketing”. They are (1) product (2) price (3) place and (4) promotion. We add a fifth P to that: (5) people. You must review and examine these principles to be ready and positioned for the web and all the tips that follow.
- YOUR WEBSITE: It is the engine of your sales lead generation. Implement the tips that follow.
- YOUR SITE OPTIMIZATION (SEO): It is the fuel of the website lead generation.
- UX (User Experience): Simple. Streamlined. Sales Funnel. Easier said than done, we know, but very important. Too many choices and prospects leave. Give them a clear indication of what you want them to do by the design of the Home Page.
- ABOVE THE FOLD: I’m an old newspaper guy, so this term makes perfect sense to me. But to explain, put all the important information needed to get the sales leads on the screen that appears when your site pops up on the prospects’ desktop or mobile phone. This area is known as “above the fold,” like when newspapers were sold on the corner in coin boxes and people could only see what was above the fold.
- USERS DO NOT SCROLL: In most cases, you lose 25% of them once they must start scrolling. The most productive websites let the user get what she/he wants to learn in one or two clicks. If prospects have to hunt, you’re sunk.
- FONT SIZE: Keep it at 12, even 14 on the home page. Many designers will disagree. Let them. You keep it at 12 minimum.
- PHONE NUMBER: Keep it bold and prominent. Put it in the header. Some prospects will fill out a form, and some will go to Contact Us, but many just want to call. Don’t lose their business: Make the number prominent. On mobile, it must be at the top of the page and “click to call.”
- FORMS: As few fields to fill out as possible. No phone number required if possible, as well. If completing a form is what you need, then put the form on every interior page. Make it easy for them. Make it obvious what you want.
- GOOGLE REVIEWS: Need to be on the Home Page and above the fold if possible. Prospects consider reviews very important. They believe Google reviews because they cannot be curated. Please: No all “5 star” reviews. Nobody believes those anymore.
- TAGS: Very important to make sure that they are all in place and well written. The search bots rely on these to get the proper information and get your site listed on their search engine. A beautiful site with no tags is…well…just a beautiful site that might never be found. These include page title tags and alt tags for images and video.
- SITEMAP: This is often overlooked and also very important to the search engines. Construct a sitemap and link it from the footer.
Our nearly 20 years of building sites and over 15 in optimizing them for SEO is the basis of the tips above. Show them to your webmaster or designer. Here’s some free advice that you can literally take to the bank. We’ll move on to more tips in our next blog.
